THE POLISH GRAIN TRADE 213content themselves with so small a profit that they have engrossed almost all that part of
the trade from Britain hither to themselves.
Our trade from hence to Britain is chiefly in linnen, wood and pottash. Since the late
imposition on soap made in Britain we have observed the quantity of pottash exported
hence thither less and to Holland greater than before, which we take to proceed from a
clandestine importation of soap from Holland to Britain, the high duty tempting people
to such indirect practices, whereby His Majesty is not only defrauded of the additional
duty on soap imported but of the customs on all the ingredients which would have been
used in making it in England, not to mantion the injury such a clandestine trade does us
in the imployment of our people and shipping. William Morgan, William Hobman,
Jonathan Beaumont, Joshua Kenworthy, Andrew Marjoribanks, Will Miller, James
Adies, John Roberts, Henry Culter, Alexander Coutts, John Wightman, Rich. Wilson.^14
At first sight, the most striking feature of Danzig's Foreign Trade was the
extraordinary imbalance of export over import. In 1565, the figures for Danzig
and Elbing together reveal an incredible ratio of 6:1. By 1620, the Crown
Marshal of Poland, Mikolaj Wolski, was complaining that the ratio had fallen
to a mere 5:2. In 1641, judging by Danzig's customs returns, it was down to 2:1.
If these figures could be accepted at face value, they would seem to be proof of
fairy-tale riches. Yet, taking the Republic as a whole, the Balance of Trade can-
not be calculated so easily. The positive balance of Danzig's sea trade was off-
set on the one hand by leakage of gold and money on the overland trade,
especially in the south-east, and on the other hand by the activities of neigh-
bouring ports. Elbing - a staple of the English Eastland Company - was largely
concerned with the import of cloth, and had a passive balance. Presumably this
would have encouraged a triangular flow of money between Danzig, Elbing, and
their common hinterland. Konigsberg, in contrast, which dominated the
Niemen basin, was a direct competitor for Danzig, exporting the products of
Lithuania and East Prussia and importing large quantities of cloth.^15
Further problems arise in connection with the Baltic Trade in general. From
ad valorem payments at the Sound, it is clear that in the seventeenth century the
English merchants were operating a tidy surplus. But it is far from clear who was
funding the deficit. Much work remains to be done on the labyrinthine work-
ings of credit. Specialists are constantly worried by the accuracy of their varying
indices of measurement, or by the representativeness of their sample years. No
final conclusions have been reached. What can be said with certainty is that the
figures for Danzig's balance in the sea trade in the period 1550-1650 accurately
reflect neither the over-all balance for the Republic nor the changing situation in
later years.
Undoubtedly, profits were there for the making. Until 1650, grain prices in
Amsterdam were usually about twice as high as in Danzig, whilst a similar price
differential prevailed between Danzig and the Polish provinces. Average profits
for the period 1600-50 have been calculated as follows: for Danzig rye-bro-
kers,+29.7 percent; for Danzig wheat brokers, +28.6 per cent; for Danzig potash
brokers, +43.5 per cent; for wheat exported to Spain, +83.4 per cent; for rye